Even though Kundan Shah’s ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’ had set the right trend and benchmark, yet black comedy remains a genre which is quite tricky to execute in films. Despite the challenges, several filmmakers have taken the risk and have delivered some fine black comedy Indian movies. For this article, we have compiled a list of five must-watch Indian black comedy films which you can stream on OTT. We’ve tried to include a mix of popular and relatively underrated movies.
Bala, 2019 (Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar)
Helmed by Amar Kaushik (Stree, Bhediya), the film revolves around the titular protagonist Bala (played by Ayushmann Khurrana), who suffers from premature balding. But when he falls in love with a beautiful woman (Yami Gautam), he hides it in order to get married to her. The movie also features Bhumi Pednekar, Javed Jaffrey, and Saurabh Shukla in important roles.
Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, 2012 (Streaming on Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube – Rent)
This one is a unique film starring Kunal Kapoor, Huma Qureshi, Vinod Nagpal and Nagesh Sharma in prominent roles. The story follows Omi Khurana (Kunal Kapoor) who comes back from London to his native village while on the run from a gangster. Once there, he decides to revive their once famous family Dhaba and rekindles an old relationship. But in order to do that, he must find the secret recipe that made the Dhaba quite popular in Punjab.
AK vs AK, 2020 (Streaming on Netflix)
Directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, the underappreciated and offbeat dark comedy thriller features Anil Kapoor and Anurag Kashyap as fictionalized versions of themselves. The plot revolves around how, after an ugly spat, an eccentric director kidnaps a movie star’s daughter (Sonam Kapoor). Anurag Kashyap shoots Anil Kapoor’s desperate search for his daughter in real time, for his next film.
Mukundan Unni Associates, 2022 (Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar)
The critically acclaimed movie follows the story of a young and ambitious advocate named Mukundan Unni (played by Vineet Sreenivasan), whose area of specialization is accident insurance claims. With no moral boundaries, the lawyer can go to any lengths to become rich and successful.
Newton, 2017 (Streaming on Amazon Prime Video)
The film’s underlying story was about the titular character Newton Kumar’s (played by Rajkumar Rao) sincere and desperate efforts to supervise free and fair voting in a remote and conflict-ridden village located in central India. The movie also features Pankaj Tripathi, Anjali Patil, and Raghubir Yadav in interesting roles. It was directed by Amit Masurkar (Sherni).